A number of barbecued food cooking grills have been proposed, including those in which a pan for burning a fuel such as charcoal have been proposed with a supporting grill for the food, wherein the grill may be rotated by a motor. This construction is shown in a number of patents, e.g.. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,134,320; 3,298,301; 3,131,685; 3,085,497; 3,012,496; 3,033,190; and 3,033,189. The latter patent is exemplary of the type of rotary grill for food which would have a high mass and inertia, and hence require a motor with enough power to overcome such high mass and inertia, especially with an unbalanced load on the grill.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,511,167 discloses a rotisserie spit for meat which may be oscillated over a small arc so as not to break a conductor wire to a thermal sensing probe in the meat. The means for effecting the reversal of rotation is not disclosed.
In the charcoal-fired cooking grills as shown in most of the first-mentioned group of patents, it is easy and practical for the cooking chef to prepare a charcoal fire of only the necessary size for the quantity of food to be cooked. Such charcoal fire can be placed in a large grill at one smaller location and the food on the grill is placed at that same smaller location. In recent years, gas-fired cooking grills have become more popular, either fired from a gas pipe or fired from a portable storage tank such as for propane. In the typical prior art gas cooking grill, the gas flame is from a large burner which covers substantially all of the grill area. When one wants to cook only a small amount of food on a large grill, this is quite wasteful of the heat source, which in this case is a gas flame.